


anohrah imkai'an

by js71



Series: Purgil Clan [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Dai Bendu, Heavy Angst, Mild Painful & Potentially Deadly Injuries, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Purgil Clan, Tinker I did warn you, dear discord server: you said you were scared. are you scared now?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27199792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/js71/pseuds/js71
Summary: imkai: (Dai Bendu) lit. "no life"; death; killedHe didn’t ignore the Dark. But he found what he needed.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: Purgil Clan [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983805
Comments: 1
Kudos: 88





	anohrah imkai'an

Cal ducked under the sabre, stumbling back. He was really glad that Caleb had found gloves for him to wear because the amount of Dark energy swirling around the temple was enough for a Force-null to sense it. He was pretty sure that if he touched anything in the temple without protection, he’d end up trapped in some kind of vision. As Caleb was on the ground, probably not dead, but certainly not in any shape to help, and Ahsoka was off doing -

He parried the latest strike, feeling his heart in his chest, thrumming in tune with the kyber crystal inside the lightsaber hilt. Too fast. Always too fast, everything went too fast, nothing ever slowed down. He took a step back, trying to settle into a better stance, and failing, as Vader swung again, his red ‘sabre hissing and spitting with darkness, with blood and imkai'an. So much of it.

Cal did not want to touch that thing. No matter what.

He also wanted to get out of here, preferably with his clanmates, with all of them alive. Which was not looking really possible, but they’d done crazier things. He hoped. His sense of crazy was somewhat skewered.

“Where. Is. The. Boy.”

Cal wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, or if Vader really was going to be that dramatic. Because seriously, that was one sentence, not four, he didn’t need to make it into four. And he also didn’t know who Vader was talking about, unless he meant Ezra, who… yeah, Cal had also lost track of Ezra, he was having such a good day.

“I don’t know!” He shouted, swinging with both hands, aware of how he was really just lashing out, and that wasn’t the best plan, but he was also aware that he needed to stay alive, and that was the goal at the moment. “Ask someone else! Aren’t you supposed to be all-knowing or something?”

Their ‘sabres collided, and Cal pressed down, trying to gain some tiny amount of leverage, calling on what Light there was in the temple to help him, wrapping it around himself, trying to focus. Vader didn’t seem to be having issues; he seemed to be mostly just playing with Cal, which was both disheartening, and reassuring. It probably meant that Cal wouldn’t die soon. Or, he wouldn’t until Vader got whatever he wanted out of him. That was likely worse, since jaieh Skywalker did know about Cal's psychometry. It wasn't like it'd been a secret or anything.

“Tell me.”

“Can’t!” Cal shouted, breaking the stalemate, and shoving as hard as he could, sending Vader across the room. In the centre of the room, the column of pain and lightning that seemed to be powering the entire structure was thrashing in the Force, wailing.

That was what Cal could never understand. The Dark twisted the Force, stabbed it, made it bleed. Why anyone would follow it, submerge themselves in it, Cal couldn’t understand. It was cold, so cold that it burned, and it was dark and lonely and it was awful. It swirled around his skin, and he cradled the little bit of Light he had with him inside himself, trying to stoke it, build it up, and use it, his hands outstretched, pushing at Vader, teeth-gritting.

He needed a new plan. Trying to stay alive wasn’t working, and he needed something that would actually work. He also needed to at least get Caleb out, and try and find Ahsoka to get her out as well. And Ezra. Wherever the kid had gone.

Vader snarled in the Force, and Cal doubled his push, straining, throwing everything he had into it, and only then did he realize. He couldn’t throw everything. The Force wanted to help him, he knew that. He just had to guide it. Paden. Not widen.

He inhaled deeply, bringing his hands close to himself, and releasing the push, sliding into mediation, circling his spark of Light, and whispering to it. It flickered, sparking brighter, warmer than it had been. Cal could sense the storm that was Vader, and he stretched out one hand, fingers spread, wrapping around him.

Just get Caleb out, he reminded himself, holding the Sith back with one hand, and reaching his other out towards Caleb, opening his eyes and focusing on his clanmate. He wrapped the Force around Caleb, lifting, and pushing him, out of the temple, towards their ship.

The Force shuttered. His grip on Vader loosened, and he exhaled, before inhaling, focusing on what he could feel. The Light, in him. The Light in Caleb. The threads that connected him to his clanmates. He didn’t ignore the Dark. But he found what he needed.

He started to back up, holding Vader back, carrying Caleb with him. Step, step, breathe. Step, step, breathe. One heartbeat at a time. Focus on the first pebble, then the boulder.

They were just outside of the room. Vader was pushing against Cal, which wasn’t fun, but nobody ever said a Sith Temple exploration would be fun. Well, Caleb had, but that’d been sarcasm.

Ahsoka. Cal blinked, reaching a new thread out to her, tugging on her. She was coming up behind Vader, lightsabers drawn. She jumped, and Cal let go of Vader. He stumbled slightly, and Ahsoka landed on his back, flipping over him, lightsabers flashing as she went. She barely landed, shoulders visibly heaving.

“Ahsoka!” Cal shouted, yanking on her thread. She lifted her head, turning it to look at Vader, who was kneeling on the floor, lightsaber off. Cal’s grip on Caleb faltered, and he grabbed his clanmate under the arms, supporting him the old-fashioned way. “‘Soka!”

She wanted to get her jaieh back. Cal wanted his jaieh back too, just like Barriss and Caleb did. They all wanted to go back to how things were, to run in the halls of Anohrah, and pile on the same bed in the dorms and watch bad holo-films about Jedi that made them laugh and get passed little candies from Bant when they ended up in the Halls and get stern talking-too’s from Volkara.

That wasn’t possible. They couldn’t go back. There was nothing but Darkness and Death and Lack of Light and the Once Temple. Sii ru imkai ru kaitalun ru Anohrahru.

Ahsoka turned away and ran for Cal and Caleb. She stumbled into them, grabbing Caleb under the arm, helping Cal drag him towards the ship.

“Where’s Ezra?” Ahsoka asked as they stumbled into the ship, Caleb a limp weight between the two of them. Cal flicked his hand absently, focused on the question, causing the doors to slide shut behind them.

“Here,” a hoarse voice rasped. Cal looked up, to find Ezra, half-collapsed on the bench that lined the ship's hold, one arm cradled close to his chest. “What -”

“Take care of Caleb,” Cal said, dropping Caleb’s weight onto Ahsoka, who’d recovered enough to take it, and stumbling towards the cockpit, really wishing that they had a droid right around then, or maybe just a semi-conscious Barriss, to figure out what was wrong with Caleb and Ezra. But no. No droids magically appeared, so that left Cal to do it. He fumbled with the straps of the pilot's seat, remembered that they needed to get moving and that wasn’t the primary concern at the moment, lunged forwards and hit the switch that activated the start-up sequence.

He hit a few more switches, grabbed the controls, and pushed forwards, taking them away from the temple as fast as he could. His hands were shaking, he knew, but he also knew that they needed to get away from the planet, and somewhere else.

The next few minutes, he couldn’t remember, even if he wanted to, which he didn't. He did remember stumbling out of the pilot's section of the ship, and into the main hold, where Ahsoka had laid Caleb out on his back, one of his hands twitching at his side. Across his brow, cutting through the bridge of his nose and through his eyes, was a dark smear, a matching, much longer mark crossing from one side of his chest, diagonally, from shoulder to the end of his opposing ribcage, black and red and smell of burning flesh, a smell Cal had hoped he’d never have to experience again.

Dark radiated from it in fumes, like the long-lost smoke that had come from it at some point. Cal gagged, stumbling sideways, and collapsing onto the bench beside Ezra, Ahsoka’s hands flowering around Caleb’s face, uncertain and hovering. Ezra pushed his way into Cal’s side, hiding his face in the older Jedi’s shirt, trembling.

“Ibli kyber,” Cal whispered softly, wrapping his arms around the boy, who turned into him, pressing through their link, pleading silently. “Ibli kyber, keel orhma bika. Orhmah. Ormah.”

“Kanan,” Ezra whispered, the pronunciation twisted as always into the Basic vocalization of the word, like how Ezra spoke Dai Bendu every time. It stabbed deeper than usual, and Cal felt tears trail down from his eyes, painful hot tears, his chest tight. He hid his face in Ezra’s hair, trying not to break down in full.

Caleb had known exactly what he was doing when he chose that name. Any Jedi who heard it would twitch at the very least, for it meant something to them, and was not a common name anywhere in the galaxy. It was one of those names that was self-inflicted. A punishment that Caleb had given himself. He’d run away from his jaieh when she was in danger, and he was going to carry that burden wherever he went.

Cal wished he’d chosen something different. Kanan just hurt, in so many ways. Nobody but the clan called Caleb by his real name. And every time, hearing the missed pronunciation clawed at Cal, alongside the meaning. Painful and raw. Even Ezra couldn't get it right, and it felt like being trapped in the vents, pressed between pipes and with his heart pounding, throat tight, eyes watering. Not knowing what was happening.

“Ibli kyber,” Cal whispered hoarsely, trying to match the tune he could remember from his childhood, rocking back and forth, his eyes shut, arms around Ezra’s back, holding him close. He couldn't remember the tune, nor all the words, fumbling for any tune he could remember, taking the bits he could remember, mixing them, the beat rough and off and so very wrong, but he tried to catch that fleeting sunlight. The fading stars.

Stars are ghosts, he remembered Caleb whispering to him one night, the two of them in the same bunk, giggling themselves to sleep because they'd had a field trip and the excitement hadn't worn off. You can only see them in some places, because they're gone, and all you're seeing is their final moments. But they're already dead. They can't come back, no matter where in the galaxy you go. “Dai orhma. Dai kaital, keel dai koml. Ibli kyber, ibli kyber. Orhma, orhma! Kaital. Kaital.”

Ezra started to really cry then. Maybe he did understand the words, and maybe he didn’t. Maybe he got the meaning or something else. Cal didn’t know. He kept on going, trying to block out the Dark, wrapping around Ezra as best he could.

“Ibli kyber, ibli kyber. Keel koml foh. Keel koml foh. Orhma, orhma! Kaital. Kaital. Ibli kyber, ibli kyber. Maya dai, dusedorem.”

He was crying too, he knew. Jaieh Skywalker was really gone, was really sii, had really... he was really imkaian. He had - it wasn’t hard to figure where the marks on Caleb’s chest and face came from, the ones that Ahsoka was so desperately trying to stabilize if only to get him back safely, the kewanah she was in deep, deep enough that she might have gotten torn out of it back Anohrah, for someone more experienced to handle. Ji Anohrahun. Jaiehun. Orhmaun. 

_Anohrahun. Kanan imbika._

Jaieh Obi-Wan’s final message. To avoid the Temple that they called Home, to avoid the Light they were drawn to, to scatter and flee and ben ru kan. Cal choked on air and begged the Force to let them go home.

The Force didn’t answer. And Cal was left with a broken child, an injured brother, and a shattered sister, on a tiny ship, in the middle of nowhere. Darkness swirling around and around and around, poking at his shields and demanding to be let in. Prodding and whispering in his ears, jabbing at his chest and heart and mind. Let us in. Let us in. We can make you strong. We can make them pay.

Revenge was not the Jedi way.

Revenge was the way of the Sith. The way of pain. And suffering. And death. And endless loop of feedback that bit and clawed and screamed. Promised power and revenge and suffering and satisfaction, an addictive high that poisoned your mind and pulled at your fingers, always, whispering to let it in.

Revenge was not the Jedi way.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](https://js71.tumblr.com/post/624273937698865152/submit-requests)!
> 
> Jaieh: Master
> 
> Ibli kyber: little kyber, term of enderment
> 
> Keel orhma bika: you're safe here
> 
> Dai: Force
> 
> Kaital: Light
> 
> Keel dai koml: the Force loves you (koml for familial/platonic love)
> 
> Keel koml foh: I love you (koml for familial/platonic love)
> 
> Maya dai, dusedroem: Trust the Force, it speaks the truth
> 
> Sii: the Sith
> 
> Imkaian: Senseless death, senseless killer, ultimate Jedi insult
> 
> Kewanah: to pray, to sing, to meditate, in the present tense.
> 
> Anohrah: home, the main Jedi Temple
> 
> Ji Anohrahun: "But the Temple was no more"
> 
> Jaiehun: lacking Masters
> 
> Orhmaun: lacking warmth, in this sense, safety, a sense of home
> 
> Anohranun: the Jedi Temple is no longer home. 
> 
> Kanan imbika: Run from here
> 
> Ben ru kan: Endure and run.


End file.
